we wanted a rumpus

and so we lit some torches


and waited for darkness

we played with fire

and waited some more


soon we saw Captain Jack Sparrow


and made the statue of Liberty run


some of us truly believed they can parkour

the beach, the moon, and the magic that only a summer night can bring :)

this is a bit bizarre..

there was a crowd on the beach

Snow and Maku were not running all over the place

they paused and posed for a pic (a very rare occurrence)

and godzilla simply walked by and left this structure untouched

what odd things a coming storm can bring

beach hopping

For the rest of the summer, the children are determined to hit every public beach access in our area. We started with this one, one we've never been to, since it has one of the longest walks from the parking lot.

To our delight, it was where catamarans go home. :)

And even more delightful, we were invited to sail. Thank goodness there was a storm coming in...I have motion sickness issues.

We helped take the sail down instead. It was my job not to get it wet - a very difficult task for a short girl like me.

I tried to help do this too but I wasn't strong enough.

We had lots of fun and like always we stayed until the sun went down. We'll be visiting another part of the beach soon. I'll let you know how it goes!

wet dog = happy dog

oh, look! water!

oh, look! fish in the water!

no swimsuit? no problem!

we didn't catch a single fish. surprise, surprise!

not even Snow's magic wand helped (if I had my way with that wand, I would use it to tame Maku's hair a bit)

so we tried our luck on dry land and caught these guys

we set them free when our clothes were dry enough for our next adventure.

snail hunting

and racing! Snow's snail won. Maku's was second. Mine didn't move at all. Jin wasn't there so we went back with her two days later.

Here we are at the same spot on a different day. The water was darker and so were we. The great race didn't happen; all we found were tiny baby ones, so we spent our time swimming in choppy, murky waters with hundreds of little fish and pieces of jellyfish brushing against our skin.

last day of school

ending the school year with proud smiles

and green drinks
here's to mornings spent the bestest and dirtiest way:



looking forward to a fun-filled summer

july

picking blueberries from the neighbor's garden

reading John Banville's The Sea

and a picture of a bus just because :)

beach ready

new swim trunks for our little friends made from Jin's old sundress
Summer here we come!

under the lifeguard station

You know summertime is too hot to handle when you take your three year old to the beach and the first thing he does is seek shelter from the morning sun.


This is all we brought home from Saturday's book sale plus Dave's pile of fiction and for dummies books. We were hoping to find The Meanest Doll in the World (for the girls) and Gideon the Cutpurse (for a friend) but the shelves were almost all empty. Maybe our next trip to a used book shop would yield more interesting finds.

just sand

Sometimes we travel a few miles south to experience more interesting sand. Sand that is not too white, sand that is not too powdery, sand flecked with pebbles and shells.




I bet you were expecting Maku's little sandy toes and Snow's cutesy little hands. Yes, we were with them. Those are Snow's beach finds that she sorted as soon as we got home.